


The Fail Fathers Club

by salanaland



Series: Skywalker Family Feels [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker's C+ Parenting, Assisted self-flagellation, Canonical Character Death, Consensual platonic testicle-kicking, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Han Solo needs a hug too, Hugs, In-Laws, Okay so I read this fic where little Han Solo was like the biggest Anakin Skywalker fanboy ever, and now it's headcanon, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salanaland/pseuds/salanaland
Summary: After a life full of unexpected everything, Han Solo dies and finds----well, more stuff he didn't expect.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Han Solo
Series: Skywalker Family Feels [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616419
Comments: 17
Kudos: 247





	The Fail Fathers Club

One moment, Han is nothing but a point of fire, a miniature sun of incandescent agony, that improbably began stellar fusion somewhere below his ribcage. _At least it got me and not Ben_ , he thinks. And then, _Oh_.

The possibly-not-next moment, he's thinking, _kriffing bottomless pits_ , as he waits for an impact that obviously never comes.

The next possibly-not-a-moment, he's sprawled in a place that he can only describe as the most _nowhere_ nowhere he's ever (not) been. Which is saying plenty, since he's been to tons of places that make Tatooine seem sophisticated and metropolitan.

A black-gloved hand snaps its fingers in front of his face to get his attention, and he grasps it gratefully, pulling himself up. "It's about time you showed up, Luke--" And then he realizes that the mechanical hand he can feel through the glove leather is _all wrong_ , and he looks up into--

\--well, that's Luke's _chin_ , and Leia's _nose_ , and Luke's eyes, and Leia's baby-face cheeks, and _stang_ if that isn't Ben's disheveled hair way up there. Han dredges up long-buried memories of half-glimpsed holovid news snippets from his childhood, and yep, it all checks out, as if it wasn't _kriffing_ obvious from the way the guy looks like _everyone_ in Han's family.

Han braces himself against the man's broader shoulders _(justlikeBenjustlikeBen)_ and stares into those blue blue eyes.

And then he brings his knee up as hard as he can.

A millisecond after impact, Han belatedly wonders if being dead might not negate the human male's greatest weakness. A millisecond after that, he wonders if this particular human male even still _has_ that weakness, or if--he doesn't want to think about this anymore, actually.

Half a second later, Han is looking _down_ for a change at his father-in-law, who is hunched over in pain, his face screwed up in silent agony. Well, that answers that. The next question is, is there such a thing as _even deader_ than the amount of dead Han already is? And is he about to find out?

"I deserved that."

"That was for the carbonite," Han informs the former Sith.

"Fair enough," Anakin agrees, staggering as he tries to stand up. Han punches him in the face.

"That was for torturing me."

"Okay."

Another kick. "That's for Luke's hand."

"Sure."

Another punch. " _That's_ for torturing Leia."

"More."

"What?"

"C'mon, don't you think I deserve more than a black eye for torturing my own daughter?"

Han looks doubtfully at Anakin. "I mean, yeah, obviously."

"You're already punching and kicking me for terrible things I've done. So..." Anakin spreads his arms wide. "Keep going, we could be here for centuries."

Han frowns. "You're not going to be all, 'but I didn’t _know_ she was my daughter'?"

Anakin shakes his head. "No, I _should_ have known. I mean, she's got my face, and my wife's hair and eyes, she's the right age, she was adopted by one of my wife's best friends, _and_ she was able to resist when I tried to crack her brain open like a varactyl egg. That should have been impossible."

Han shakes his head ruefully. "You know, I had almost forgotten who I was talking to until that last bit."

Anakin grins, just a bit. "Hey, you knew what our family was and you chose to join it anyway, right?" His brow furrows. "You _did_ know, right? She did _tell_ you first, didn't she?"

"Before what?"

"Before you got married. She did _know_ before...right?" Anakin really looks concerned, which Han finds completely incredible.

"Wait, so, I just kicked you in the alluvial dampers, and what _you're_ worried about is whether I _knew_ you'd be my father-in-law before I married your daughter? Which I _did_."

"Well, _yeah_ ," Anakin says with a relieved sigh. "And it's not like I actually have a body anymore, so that was more of an _idea_ of blinding pain than anything else."

Han shakes his head again. "You are _so_ strange." He half raises his fist again, then deflates and sits on--he's not sure what. "And I'm--I'm _dead_ , and an idiot."

Anakin sits beside him. "It happens."

"All that time I could have spent with Leia...I could have gone home any time. I was just too kriffing stupid. And scared."

"Scared of what?"

Han throws his hands in the air. (Is it even air? Are they even really hands?) "Everything. Scared of bad things happening to her, to Ben. Scared that he'd _do_ bad things. That _she'd_ do bad things."

"What bad things would _Leia_ do?" Anakin asks, confused. "And why?"

Han groans. "You've been haunting her for _how_ long? You should know. Leia does what's necessary. She's not a softie like Luke. Like Luke _used_ to be." He sighs at Anakin's incomprehension. "I'm just saying, if _Leia_ had gone to the second Death Star with you, she'd have wound up killing you and the Emperor herself, just to protect the galaxy and the Rebellion."

Anakin chuckles ruefully. "You're probably right. About that at least; I don't think she would have hurt her own son."

Han seems to shrink in on himself. "I didn't think Ben would hurt _me_ , but..."

"Children feel differently about their parents than parents feel about their children," Anakin says, as matter-of-fact as if he's reminding Han that Tatooine has two suns. "Parents are _supposed_ to sacrifice for their children."

"Yeah, well, I couldn't even do _that_ right," Han mutters.

"No, you did," Anakin assures him. "You did it perfectly. You were _wonderful_ and _amazing_."

Han _wants_ to believe this, _longs_ to feel this tiny warm spark of a feeling he's always craved and never felt. And he remembers, inconsequentially, watching the holonews as a child, watching the daring exploits of the best pilot in the galaxy, the Hero With No Fear. He remembers desperately wishing his idol would just _happen_ to come to Corellia, and see the scrawny, dirty street kid skulking around, and just _know_ what a great pilot Han was, and take him away for thrilling adventures in the stars. And be _proud_ of him.

And-- _hug_ him?

"I can stop, if you want," his father-in-law (the Hero With No Fear, the Dark Lord of the Sith, the man who froze Han in carbonite and tortured Leia and tortured Han and cut off Luke's _hand_ ) says in his ear. "But I _am_ proud of you. And you're _family_. And _I_ was a little boy once, too, dreaming of the stars. And you got yourself there, and you figured out how to be a good man most of the time, and I am so, _so_ proud of you." Anakin squeezes him tighter, but Han is used to Wookiee hugs, so it's not so bad.

It's actually kind of nice. Han can't remember his own father ever hugging him and telling him this sort of thing. Eventually, he'd even forgotten to wish things were different. But here he is, a lifetime later, and his childhood idol, Anakin _kriffing_ Skywalker, still (again?) looking as young as the Clone Wars hero he used to be, is _giving him fatherly hugs_ and not around the throat, even, so it's not like Han can _blame_ him for the choked-up feeling he has. "Quit it," he mumbles. "You're squeezing all the water out of my body through my eyeballs."

"You're just imagining that," Anakin says gently, patting his son-in-law on the back. "But don't stop squeezing the water out of _my_ eyeballs, okay?" he adds as Han clings to him.

"What's next?" Han asks, after hugging for some amount of time or no time or an infinite amount of time. "Do I go on to one of the hells from here? If so, can we hug some more first? For, like, ever?"

Anakin laughs. "You become one with the Force. No Corellian hells, I promise."

"What if I don't _believe_ in the Force?" Han challenges.

Anakin flicks him in the ear. "You married into a family that's literally _made of_ the Force and you _still_ don't believe in it? You really _are_ a nerfherder."

Han ducks away from another flick in the ear. "Do I get to haunt people? Like you?"

Anakin frowns. "It's difficult. You'd have to--"

"--be a Jedi, right?" Han scoffs. "Figures."

"-- _learn_ how to consolidate your consciousness in the Force, so _first_ you'd have to learn how to meditate and feel the Force."

"And that'll never happen, because I'm not Force sensitive."

"It's not an all-or-nothing thing," Anakin corrects him. "It's not like having a dimple in your chin, where you have it or you don't. It's more like flying. Some people can't be trusted with even a landspeeder. Others can get where they're going in one piece, and then others like _us_ can make the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, or win the Boonta Eve Classic despite being a human." He waves his arms around, and Han ducks. " _Everyone's_ connected to the Force. It's just _easier_ for some beings to feel it. I couldn't _not_ feel it, ever, I was _always_ seeing futures. But I'm a strange person." He shrugs apologetically. "Like you said, and Leia always tells me."

"Leia _talks_ to you? Since _when_?"

"She's been lonely," Anakin says gently. "She's never had _no_ family. Until--"

"Until I left," Han mutters. "Until I ran away like a big sniveling cowardly coward."

"You're not the only one," Anakin points out. "Luke cut himself off from the Force. And Ben..."

"Yeah, I know," Han mumbles. "Leia deserves better. Better than me, better than Ben, better than Luke..."

"Better than me, too," Anakin says firmly. "But even though I'm nowhere near worthy of having an amazing daughter like her, the least I can do is _be there_ if she's desperate enough to want _me_ around."

Han deflates a little more. "And I couldn't even get my act together enough to do _that_ much. What a kriffing awful husband I am. Was."

Anakin pats his hand. "I promise I was a worse one."

Han shakes his head. "No offense, but I was generally aiming for 'a _lot_ better than Darth Vader' in my interpersonal relationships, not ' _slightly_ better than Darth Vader'."

Anakin nods. "So, you want to start with that meditation, then? Because you can't fix the past, but you can do better in the future. Even after death."

Han snorts. "Do I seem like a meditation kind of guy?"

Anakin shrugs. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"That's an option?"

"If I look for you, I can find you," Anakin assures him. "If you want me to find you, that is."

Han nods, slowly. "Maybe. Look, uh, Anakin. You're better at this stuff than I am. Can you, you know, look in on Ben? Keep an eye on him? Maybe talk to him some?"

Anakin nods. "Absolutely."

Han unsteadily gets to an idea of his feet. "And look after Leia?" he asks plaintively. "I mean, I know she can look after herself, but..."

"Of course."

"And...and Luke. If you see him, tell him... Tell him I forgive him, okay? I don't know anything about this Force stuff, but I'm sure he did his best."

"I will," Anakin promises.

"And Chewie... Tell him to go _home_ and be with his son. And that I'm sorry for all the times I tried to sing his favorite song. And, and tell Rey that I'm proud of her..."

Anakin nods, listening fondly as Han rambles.

"And _you_ , you should be _best friends_ with the _Falcon_. You have a _lot_ in common. So go talk to her. Uh, if you can. I'm not sure how all this ghost stuff works, but I think she'd like you. You'd get up to all sorts of mischief, I'm sure. And make the galaxy better for it."

"You're setting me up on a _friend date_ with your _ship_??"

Han nods, then clutches Anakin's arm, eyes wide with fear. "I... I think it's time to go, now. Is it gonna hurt? Is it like, like the carbonite?"

Anakin shakes his head. "It's nothing at all like being carbon frozen. I _promise_ you. The painful part is already over." He gathers Han gently in another hug. "Just relax. Please."

"Tell Leia I love her," Han whispers.

Anakin grins, remembering. "She knows."

Han looks up at his father-in-law in surprise, then grins sheepishly. And then he fades into the light, still smiling.


End file.
